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The Persistence of Legal Debt, by Salvadawg Dali As you all know, this Green and Pleasant Blog was recently the setting for an important legal decision. The judgement rendered in the case of “Baglow v. Smith et al.” has sparked...
Balbulican
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Canada has taken upon itself the role of an essential player in military conflicts overseas. We've played with the big boys in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya and now Iraq and the Baltics. We've lost lives, we've spent a fortune and we've left our military pretty much clapped out.

It's time to add up just what we've accomplished with those lives and all that money. Kosovo - a failed state whose people want one thing more than anything - to leave. Afghanistan - a failed state rent with insurgency and its own newcomer, ISIS. Libya - a failed state with its own newcomer, ISIS. The Baltics? Meh. We certainly haven't deterred Vlad Putin and, if anything, we've probably boosted his approval numbers at home.

As for Canada, Harper has gone for deficit fighting rather than funding the rehabilitation of Canada's military. Our navy is at something resembling its state pre-WWII. The air force is an open question. Harper still wants to saddle the air force with a warplane that offers little to nothing for the defence of Canada. The army has a shopping list for replacement kit as tall as the Peace Tower.

Plainly Harper's defence policy at home is about as successful as his military adventures overseas. To his neoliberal instincts, defence policy is about as relevant as foreign policy, except in the context of trade. What our defence policy actually achieves is nowhere near as important as making role call with the big boys. From that vantage, whether there's anything lasting to show for your efforts in the countries you've bombed, invaded or garrisoned is of no particular moment.

We know the biggest obstacles to peace in the Middle East are the Palestinian peace initiative and the undeclared Islamic civil war pitting Sunni against Shiite.

The first obstacle, the Palestinian question is dead for the foreseeable future. Netanyahu ran on a promise there will be no Palestinian state on his watch and he's promised to accelerate the construction of illegal settlements in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Where can he go from there except the seizure of all of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Palestinians from "biblical Israel"?

On the Islamic civil war, there is no conceivable reason we should allow ourselves to get drawn into that one. The side we're allied with, the Sunnis, is the same side whose people blew up the US embassies, bombed the USS Cole, knocked down the World Trade Centre and formed the Taliban, al Qaeda and ISIS. It's the same side that sent so many of our young soldiers home in boxes.

Which begs the question why Canada should participate in these Mid East and eastern European follies at all? We don't make a lot of worthwhile friends out of it but we sure seem to make a lot of enemies who may just want to pay us back for those bombs and shells and bullets. Maybe enough is enough.

Let's stop playing in the sandbox of foreign lands. Let's focus on something valuable, the security of Canada. Wouldn't it be a dandy idea to have some capability to defend Canada's three ocean coastline, our airspace, our landmass especially the vast, sparsely populated north? It's going to take a lot of money to do that, money that we've been pissing away in the Middle East and eastern Europe only to achieve bugger all in the result.

Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to pull his fat out of the fire. Faced with a seemingly desultory turnout at the polls today and the prospect of losing badly to his Zionist Union rivals, Bibi summoned a little of that old magic and, in short order, the turnout at the polls increased.

Netanyahu's magic appears to demonstrate that fearmongering, pretty much the essence of his campaign, works. In an act of desperation he took to the airwaves today warning of a massive turnout of Arab Israelis at the polls and alleging that foreign operatives were at work to help the leftists defeat Likud.

The latest exit polls show Netanyahu and Zionist Union are in a virtual tie with some giving Likud a slight edge. The outcome will influence each side's ability to strike the ever critical coalition needed to form government. Likud has the advantage in the coalition game.

Netanyahu in the closing days of the campaign courted Israel's hard right with promises of no deal for a Palestinian state on his watch which probably means the Middle East peace process will go from nearly dead to complete flatline. Netanyahu has also promised to ramp up construction of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories if he's returned to power. That should cement Israel as a pariah state in the eyes of the advanced democracies of the world and, in all likelihood, be celebrated by giving the Palestinians another "mowing" at the hands of the Israeli military.